poets and pirates

When I was visiting family in Washington last month I spent some time with my Great Uncle Dee in Spokane. Uncle Dee has a thing for books. He used to own a great little used bookstore but has since retired. I remember whenever he came to Missouri for a visit he would always spend time roaming through our area antique stores and flea markets looking for just one more must have book. He has a wonderful collection of rare and old books - some of which are breathtakingly beautiful. I'm a bit of a hoarder of books myself. But my collection has no real monetary worth, it is instead my own personal (well-used) library. In addition to Uncle Dee's personal collection, he also has an amazing stockpile of used books that he works on cataloguing daily. Because, while he may be officially retired, my Great Uncle Dee is still very much in the book business. His basement showcases row after row after row of bookcases filled with his finds. And for every organized bookcase he has, there is a pile of boxes left to sort through. He uses the Internet to help match books with buyers and seems to enjoy the process.

During my stay he gave me a book he'd found in one of his stacks titled Amy. It was a biography about the early 1900's poet Amy Lowell and he warned me that it would likely be a "bad read." I thought the gesture was really, really sweet and for that reason only opened the book to check out "the world of Amy Lowell and the Imagist Movement." It came as a surprise to both of us that I actually became interested in both poet and movement and decided to continue the book to its completion. It was written a good 30 plus years ago and it's author has since passed away. This fact known to me because I went as far as to Google her with the thought that it might be nice to send a note on how much I enjoyed her work. The book itself is an old hardback (of which I'm not usually a fan) with a faded cover. And has now become a permanent part of my book collection.

Yesterday I went to the big Half Price Books here in Dallas in search of a specific book I'd found mention of in my Internet wanderings. I was unsuccessful in that particular pursuit but prevented a wasted trip by spending a good hour just browsing through the store. Just before I left, another old hardback book with faded cover caught my attention. Amy's Eyes. Curiosity caused me to pull it from the shelf and read the inside cover. It's a children's book about a little girl who becomes a doll and her adventures with her sea captain doll who had become a man. I have no idea if this new Amy will be able to hold my interest but as I flipped through the pages I found something else that did. An old photograph, that had obviously been used as a bookmark by the book's previous owner, showed a picture of a little boy sitting on top of a zebra. The zebra was of the inanimate object variety and seemed to be standing guard at some sort of carnival or fair. The boy had a shy, but still toothy, smile for the camera and I was instantly charmed. So, my book collection has grown by yet one more and I am now in fairly desperate need of my own basement library. Which, logically, puts me in even more desperate need of an actual basement:)